Earth4All: New initiative on transformational economics

“Earth4all is about achieving the Sustainable Development Goals within planetary boundaries,” says PIK Director Johan Rockström. Earth4All will assess global catastrophic risks, such as crossing planetary tipping points, and combine this with the quantitative assessment of economic development along the following five pathways:

1. Energy: accelerate energy transition along a “Carbon law” path of halving emissions every decade. This will require changing how we use materials and energy and how we process our waste: a closed loop economy. 
2. Food: Rapid scale-up of regenerative food production and a shift to sustainable consumption
3. Poverty: Apply new development models in poor countries for rapid, inclusive economic development. 
4. Inequality: Catalyze unprecedented inequality reduction and ensure proper wealth distribution
5. Population: Invest in education of women, gender equality, health, and family planning

These pathways are most likely to drive transformational, and systemic change towards sustainability. Earth4All will produce detailed roadmaps for each transformational pathway; they will be stress tested and further developed into clear policy scenarios for implementation by a multidisciplinary Commission of economic thought leaders. Engagement with all major stakeholders including policy makers, relevant academic institutes, scientists, and business leaders and citizen groups will be fostered from the outset. 

The initiative builds the Limits to Growth report commissioned by the Club of Rome and published in 1972. Earth4All will publish its analyses in 2022 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first “Earth Summit” – the United Nations Conference on the Environment, held in Stockholm.